Olde Homestead Golf Club's Blog

So you’ve struggled the past month or so, and you’re contemplating taking an extended break from the game. Nothing feels right about your golf swing. It’s gotten so bad now that par seems like an unrealistic score on even the easier holes.

We’ve all been there. And if we continue to play this great game, we will find ourselves there once again. It’s the nature of the beast, and at the same time, whether we like to admit it or not, it’s why a lot of us play. None of us ever own the game, not even Tiger Woods. We might borrow it from time to time, but we never get to really hang onto it for very long, it seems.

I’ve played for 20 years, and during this time I’ve had my share of frustrations. I remember a time that doesn’t seem all that long ago when I was questioning exactly why I continued punishing myself by playing. I had one of the longest funks of my career creep in, as I sought refuge in this tiny little village in Vietnam called Duk Hook. Every swing was a hook… the more I tried to account for it, the worse it got. I was only one more frustrating round away from putting the clubs away for the season, and it was only July. It was at that point that I finally gave in.

Two days later I was showing up for the first lesson I’d had in years. Maybe even a decade. Men are like that. We don’t like instructions… it’s the reason why we hate buying cheap prefab furniture that comes with 1000 different pieces and a 50-page thesis of how to put the thing together. We’ll spend the additional $25 to get the new gas BBQ grill assembled at Sears. And we’ll waste a half a tank of gas before we’ll ever lower ourselves to ask someone for directions. That’s just the way we are. But sometimes that stubbornness doesn’t bode too well in golf, especially if we don’t have an abundance of time to figure something out on the practice range. We suddenly become these mechanics on the golf course, thinking that if we do this, that will happen. If we do that, this will happen. And all the while, all we’re doing is venturing further and further into the wilderness of frustration, getting more and more lost by the moment.

I spent half of a season trying to figure out how to fix a hook, my way. I put myself through more frustration, frustration that I never knew existed in golf, during those 4 months than I had experienced in my lifetime of playing. It finally hit me that day that I couldn’t do it by myself. I needed help. I needed someone to get me back to square one, getting me back in the right direction.

Within 1 hour of that lesson, my hook was cured. That was it, 60 minutes. The instructor quickly saw that my setup was bad, my grip was even worse, and my swingplane was being dictated by the bad alignment, the bad setup, and the bad grip. Of course, I had been lining up that way for so long, had been addressing the ball that way for so long, and had been gripping the club that way for so long, that the slight changes that he suggested to me seemed somewhat awkward. But within two rounds, my good swing had returned. And so did my confidence, which I honestly never believed would happen. Paul Azinger once said, “When you’re hitting the ball with confidence, you feel like you’re never gonna lose it. When you’re not, you feel like you’re never gonna find it.” In all my years of reading some great quotes about the game of golf, nothing ever said about the game was ever more true.

So that brings me to my first key.

Set up a lesson. If you’ve been struggling and you don’t know where to start, stop punishing yourself and let someone help you get back on the right track. Maybe it will take more than one hour to figure it all out. So what? A lot of these instructors know the mechanics of the golf swing. They’ve got great eyes, they know what to look for. They’ve seen these problems many times from other students, so your particular issues aren’t completely foreign to them. Go do it. You deserve to play better golf. You owe it to yourself to enjoy your time spent playing. It’s the first step in the right direction.

Move up a set of tees. I got my handicap down to scratch last season, at least for a month or so. It was the best year of golf I’ve ever had. If I had to credit one thing for the confidence I had last year, it was moving up a set of tees when the season began. That’s right… I was playing a shorter, more forgiving course for the first couple of months into the season. What this did was allow me to gradually get back into a good golf swing without totally destroying my confidence right at the start of the season. My best swings were still a few months away, but playing the shorter tees I didn’t have to hit a long tee ball to score. So this gave me an opportunity to focus more on my accuracy, as I progressed into more of my normal, aggressive golf swing. Most of all, I had removed the pressure associated with playing a longer, more intimidating golf course. It didn’t take very long, even early in the season, to start shooting some excellent scores. And once I felt like my game was ready, I then moved back to the back tees.

If you’re not having a fair chance at hitting more than half of the greens in regulation, and what I mean by that is that you can’t physically hit enough club to make it to the green – you’re playing the wrong tees. I see this every week I play… a guy feels obligated to play with the longer hitters at whatever tee box they’re playing, despite the fact that with his best drive he’s still 40 yards behind them. And in some cases, that player could afford to move up two sets of tees! But they’ll say, “where’s the challenge playing a shorter course?” I will tell you this, with a fair degree of confidence: 8 out of 10 golfers, on average, will fail to break 80 from the most-forward tees. Then they’ll say, “well if I can’t break 80 from the shortest tees, then I might as well move back and say that at least I played the tees I should be playing.” Wrong again. If you can’t give yourself reasonable scoring opportunities from the forward tees, then you should stay there until you can score from those tees. It’s the same concept that I applied last season to help get my confidence going. If you’ve not scored well the past couple of months, move up a set of tees and give yourself a chance to remember what it feels like to make some pars, maybe even a few birdies. The confidence helps.

5 minutes to a better golf swing. Okay, so we don’t have 2 hours a week to go to the practice range. You do have 5 minutes, however. Five minutes a day. Take a mid-iron, go in the yard, and swing. While you’re swinging, go through your normal setup. Focus on the proper grip, the proper alignment, and good posture. Feel your golf swing. Feel your takeaway staying connected on the backswing. Feel the weight transfer to your back leg. Feel your back pointing towards the target. Then feel the weight gradually transfer to the front leg, as your hips start to open, as your arms deliver the club head back to the impact position. Feel a controlled, balanced follow-through. After 3-4 of these slow-motion swings, speed it up. By the end of the 5 minutes, you should be taking your normal swing and soaking in that feeling of a well-connected golf swing.

Get to the course early enough to loosen up before the round. Players who want to score well are ready to play when it’s time to put a peg in the ground on the first tee. That means being both physically and mentally prepared. It’s hard to be mentally prepared if you’re not physically prepared. No one enjoys not knowing where that first tee shot of the day is gonna go. But that’s precisely the feeling a player has when he’s not loose. Get into the habit of getting to the course early enough to loosen up and hit some balls. Spend 15-20 minutes hitting clubs, and then spend the last 10-15 minutes chipping and putting. So what if you’re playing early and lose 35 minutes of sleep. Wouldn’t you give up a half hour’s sleep to possibly shoot a personal best? Give yourself that opportunity by getting to the course earlier to get in some swings. That alone could be the difference in 5-6 strokes in your scores.

Lower your expectations. Of everything I’ve talked about, this is undoubtedly the most difficult for a majority of players. We always want to think that we’re just one round, one hole, or one swing away from playing our best golf. And that’s seldom the case. Lose the expectations. Or better yet, the only expectation you should have is that you’re going to enjoy the day, regardless of whatever score you shoot. When you lower your expectations, you’re also removing the internal pressure to perform at a level that you’re not capable of performing to. Look at guys who go out and shoot a personal-best round. What happens the next round? They come back to earth in a free-fall. Rory McIlory is one of the greatest players in the world, and tied the record score of 63 in his opening round at the British Open. What happened the very next day? He threw up a around of 80. Yeah, maybe the weather was a bit tougher on Friday than Thursday. But was it 17 strokes tougher? Certainly not. In a similar way, this affects us mere mortal linksmen as well. We get infatuated with a certain number that we’re going to shoot, and then we put tons of pressure on ourselves the very first instance that we start getting behind. One bad shot leads to another, and before you know it – we’ve taken a score on a hole that totally kills our confidence. Instead, keep your expectations low. Play each shot one at a time, with the same low-level of importance. If you don’t make the 8 footer on the first hole to make par, oh well… no one is going to die because of it. Keep that attitude when you play. Don’t be afraid to miss. When you’re afraid to miss, you usually do. Just enjoy each shot, look at each shot as an opportunity. And do your best. If you can do that, then you will have more than exceeded your expectations for the round.

Do these things, and you’ll definitely see a difference in your scores, and for the better.